The Earth team finally takes a 70-69 lead thanks to DT’s amazing play, but DT is really starting to wear down. He’s tired and dizzy, and gets whistled for two charging fouls and fouls out (the first one was questionable, but on the second one, Rigel jumped into him, wtf). With DT out, the team plays like crap, and only scores a few more points in the fourth quarter. Hideyoshi tries to take over, but he can’t really create his own shot that well, and his handle is really pathetic as Julius picks his pocket over and over and over again. After a while, the rest of the Earth team refuses to pass to Hideyoshi, and even though he keeps calling for a pass, they ignore him. Finally the game ends with a score of 114-81, but after the buzzer sounds, Hideyoshi is still calling for the ball like a crazed monkey. This makes everyone feel all awkward and uncomfortable.
In an interesting twist, Julius is rather upset by Hideyoshi’s reaction. Perhaps Julius remembers his own messup last season, and so he seeks out Hideyoshi after the game and lets him know that “just talent isn’t good enough.” Julius’ teammates tease him about being upset even after the victory, and tell him he now has a new rival. Back in the Earth team’s locker room, everyone sits quietly and then leaves, and it’s just Cha-Che and Hideyoshi. As usual, she thinks she’s going to get molested, but Hideyoshi gets his revenge on everyone by eating the whole team’s lunches. Then he gets fired up watching some Gyuma footage and says next year they will be awesome.
Well it didn’t end like the manga, but this ending made almost no sense whatsoever. Did the team get disbanded at the end? What happened? The amount of non-game stock footage was really disturbing as well. I usually take 6 screencaps of the first and last episodes, but this one didn’t have enough, since almost half the episode was stock footage. In some ways it was nice seeing Hideyoshi getting destroyed. He’s a poor defender, and he can’t even create his own shot (he doesn’t win a single 1-on-1 matchup the whole series). He barely passes, makes poor decisions with the ball, and turns the ball over like it was going out of style. Once DT sits, this is plainly obvious, and it felt like the ending of Dear Boys, except that Aikawa is good and Hideyoshi sucks. The best part of this episode was when Hideyoshi tried to fire up the team with a cliche shounen speech, and right as he crosses the halfcourt line, he gets the ball stolen by Julius, who goes the other way for a dunk. Hilarious! That and Cha-Che’s weird whiny noises were the only interesting parts of this episode, and overall the ending sucked.
This post was written by...
Kabitzin – who has written 1970 posts on Sea Slugs! Anime Blog.
One of the founders of Sea Slugs, I handle most of the blog admin tasks while wearing my I AM BOSS shirt. I like my action series well choreographed, and my romance series extra trashy. I also have a soft spot for puns.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
OMFG…. This end is really nonsense -___- i totally agree with you and I cant stand Hideoyoshi just like u… I really prefered the manga…
Plus, it doesnt make sense as DT was saying: Humans are so weak… (I was doubting about something and it was confirmed with the manga). Then, Lazuli… Don’t even know WHY they went to the planet to make him enter the team since… he dont often play…
Afro never played lol. Then, Ivan and the girl are always on the bench. the reporters are useless..
It is a Basketball anime but… there is a big lack of basket O_o
I haven’t read the manga, but the concerns of the back story and the players not playing and the such, no big.
When you have a team that is hot, you don’t really want to switch them out. You keep in the players that are hot in the game. They are on a roll you don’t want to risk losing that. Though it was ChaChe and Ivan who helped start that roll.
As for the lack in the background stories, well the way it ended, I am sure that they were hoping to get a second season in. This hope was probably based on the graphics of the show.
The problem with Hideoyoshi’s game, I think would have fixed itself. I mean it is a sports anime. They are going to go with what worked in the past, taking this new person/team and work them through slowly getting stronger. Like in Metal Fighter Miku, she isn’t the best to start out with, she has to learn slowly, and I think that Hideoyoshi was changing.
The show truly had its let downs, but I think that it was a pretty well done show. I hope that someday they will finish it out. I want to see Hideoyoshi vs. Gyuuma.